Caledonian canal - Northern Ireland

We're in Ardglass, southeast of northern Ireland. Heading for straight for Dublin in just a few hours..

Puilladohr, ouilla, pullalochdore, pui something something anchorage.

In Oban we got stuck waiting out a storm for almost a week, it was squally and wet, costing us a fortune staying in the marina but was only way to get some sleep for thoose windy days. Finally the wind eased and we could continue. Going throught the sound of Luing we were making 9 knots in the streams, we looked into the feared gulf of corrywrekan, it looked calm, we kept our distance anyway. We made it to Craighouse and continued to Port Ellen the next day. Crossing the North channel we had to motor some of the way, the sea lay flat and the current pushing us past Rathlin island with full speed,  made it to Glenarm in Northern Ireland just as the tide turned.

Marina in Loch ness

 With the current with us and the wind against us the next day we met some nasty waves and decided to make it a short day we went in to the cosy industrial harbour of Larne and anchored south of an powerplant. Everything was wet, the last week had given us very little sun and everything inside the boat was damp and wet. Next hop we decided to make a longer one to get out of the north channel for some nicer weather and less currents. Arrived in Ardglass in the middle of the night.

From here we plan to go straight to Dublin(around 60nm), its blowing around 20 kn from the southeast and the irish sea looks choppy, i think its gonna be a wet passage. But we wanna get there, not spend another week waiting for good weather. In Dublin it seems like we will spend some time. We're tired.. The weatehr is getting nastier, we wanna stop for a while. Going two persons without an autopilot from Sweden to Ireland kind of makes you tired. In Dublin we want some time to practice on our circus shows, and maybe work if we can find some job.

Lets hope the waves will not be too steep tonight!

Crossing the north channel in calm conditions

       

Caledonian canal

We have now just get through the Caledonian canal. It took us 8 days, because some engine problems we got stuck in Port August for two more days and nights than we had expected. 

We meet a really sweet couple last night that was a really good help. We were thinking of buying the charts for the continuing travel from Corpach to Ireland in Inverness but because we had to hurry up to get to the next bridge before they would close fore the day we thought we could buy this in Fort William instead. But this couple told us that there were no shops where we could buy charts before Oban, and that felt as a to long way to travel without anything...

But as I said they where really nice and in the end we ended up with all the charts we needed and they didn't want anything. Some of the charts was from the late 70s !

They gave us a little card with their address so that we can keep in contact, I love this kind of gentle old people that is still doing there dream! They had been sailing the north sea this summer, in 50 knots wind, that is really rough I will promise. So now they where stuck until they had reapered some things on the boat.

 After beeing stucked in Whitehills for so long it has been really great to be in places where there are people that you can talk to and the canal was calm and nice.

But the weather just gets colder and wetter so we hope to get to the sun as fast as possible!

Lossiemouth

Lossiemouth - largest beach ever